04/01/08  New CDC Report Shows Increase in Uninsured
From HFMA NEWS
Published: March 28, 2008

From January 2007 to September 2007, the number of Americans uninsured at the time of the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) was 43.7 million (14.7 percent) for people of all ages, according to a report released March 27 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention--up from 43.6 million a year earlier. And 54.5 million (18.4 percent) Americans of all ages were uninsured for at least part of the year prior to the interview. Also, 31.2 million (10.5 percent) had been uninsured for more than a year at the time of the interview.

Working-age adults were almost twice as likely to experience this lack of coverage (23.9 percent) as children under the age of 18 (12.9 percent). The percentage of children uninsured during at least part of the year prior to the interview decreased from 18.1 in 1997 to 12.9 in the first nine months of 2007. The percentage of children under the age of 18 who were uninsured at the time of the NHIS interview was 9.2 in the first nine months of 2007. Since 1997, there has been a decreasing trend in the percentage of children who were uninsured at the time of the interview.